Saturday 30 April 2016

Check out HATEBREED's new video for Looking Down the Barrel of Today


  

  After the lyric video for A.D, Hatebreed bring out a simple yet effective performance video for Looking Down the Barrel of Today. Shot in their rehearsal room in Connecticut, we see the band in their element, doing what they do best and just playing hard!
  The track speaks of pushing through adversity and opposition, as do the written messages flashing throughout the video. These include the likes of "Live it to the fullest", "Keep a positive mental attitude" and "It's never too late to make a positive change." With the addition of the messages, it all comes across a bit "after school special". Although everyone at any age could be comforted by words of positivity and encouragement, it feels as if it is primarily aimed at teens. 
 The song alone is empowering and clear enough that the written messages don't seem all that necessary. The track shows the band back on form, mixing the fast paced riffing with crashing hardcore grooves. For the first time in ages, I can say that this Hatebreed track finally has a hook. "Once had a shotgun to my head; said I wasn't worth the bullets" fits so perfectly with the rhythm of the riff in an almost rap-like fashion that it's unforgettable and anthemic. 
   The new album The Concrete Confessional is due for release on May 13th and I for one am looking forward to checking it out.

Friday 29 April 2016

Live Review: TEDER FIGHT! @ Teder, Rishon LeZion [7th April 2016]

03 Ganza 

Eternal Struggle

Petrichor


 Up until now, the only main reason I ever had to venture down to Rishon LeZion (a city just a little south of Tel Aviv) was for a teaching job I was doing. I haven't had to go back there in quite some months. Tonight, I find myself in a section of the city I've never been to before, on the edge of a cross section next to pretty much nothing else except this skate park/youth centre/music venue called Teder. I have come here to finally support Eternal Struggle and 03 (Efesh Shalosh), as well as finally check out Petrichor and Ganza, who have all come to play in front of a crowd of, what looks like, mostly 15 year olds.

Petrichor

Photo by ANON

 I've already checked out a bit of Petrichor beforehand via some of their music videos. From what I gathered, it was basically a kind of metalcore/easycore with clean vocals. Tonight, there is that but also with more of a hint of hard rock simpleness.
 I managed to just come in during opener One Of A Kind, which is jumpy and fun enough but a bit weak lyrically. It's fine for the very young crowd that's here tonight but doesn't quite resonate for me. This goes for most of the band's material. The musical style of hard rock meets fairly watered down metalcore mixed together with the lyrics just brings to mind something you might see on a coming-of-age tv show. It borders upon the likes of softer Avenged Sevenfold and Atreyu.
  There's a hint of metallic riffing here and there, such as at the beginning of Take It Off and final song Hate Me, which generally brought to mind both Alice Cooper's 18 and Nirvana's Rape Me due to its chorus. A circle pit breaks out for Desperate Call, despite it not really being heavy or fast enough to be worthy of a circle pit. But that's just the kind of crowd we have tonight; kids desperate to get their frustrations out. I remember those days...
 The band themselves are talented musicians. Frontman, Gal, manages to hold some fairly good notes but it's bassist, Yuval, who is the most impressive. Not only is he solid throughout, but he even manages to slip in some cool bass solos, like on Paranoid (not the Sabbath song). Whether the band will make it in Europe and the States, I'm not entirely sure. The sound and songwriting needs to mature a tad more but in the meantime, I think both the very young and more old school fans of rock and hair metal will dig them.

2.5/5

Eternal Struggle


  I have only managed to see Eternal Struggle once before. Technically twice, but I don't really count their awful sounding support slot for Biohazard. They may have had some of the same material and band members, but i just don't remember even sounding near as good as they do now.
  Eternal Struggle basically play the sort of hardcore I grew up on. Very NY influenced groove hardcore, with some beatdown parts and gang vocals. Although there's a few bands out here that fall under the hardcore banner, Eternal Struggle currently fill the space that was previous left empty since maybe Instinct or You're Next!
 Although things did get a bit feistier during the song Lost, which more people are probably familiar due to the video, I feel that this kind of hardcore was lost on these more metal orientated youths. That said, I wasn't totally alone on the spin kicking and arm flailing front; I did spot a few others. I don't mean to say that you need to do all the kung fu in order to enjoy hardcore, but there was a fair bit of standing about and unsureness of what to do in the slower parts.
  Although the band's own material, such as LostPride Kills and Repeat Nothing, hold up well on their own, it was nice to hear a Sick Of It All cover. Maybe not my favourite SOIA song, but Take The Night Off is more of one of their modern classics. They actually played this the very first time I saw them but it was almost unrecognisable for the most part. This time, however, it was a spot on. With a mixture of two step and bouncing parts, it did get some people moving, but judging by the fact that really only I and the 03 guys cheered when the band said Sick Of It All, it's safe to say that the crowd here were not all that familiar with the band or the song.
  When Eternal Struggle's album finally drops, I am hoping that it's interesting and fresh enough to get them some interest at least over in mainland Europe if not also the UK and USA. Those markets are hard to crack but it's not impossible.


4.5/5

Ganza



  Like PetrichorGanza is another band I was only partially familiar with beforehand. From what I could tell from the first few listens, is that it seems to be a more classic hard rock band compared to many of the other Israeli bands around at the moment. In actual fact, Ganza's live shows portray them as a band that hasn't quite discovered its own identity.

  From the outset, the band have a stage presence of a classic rock band who would have fit perfectly in clubs along Sunset Strip during the 80s with the likes of Motley Crue and Poison. As the band play on, the material is a bit of a mixture of genres, touching upon hard rock, grunge and metal. To be honest, I spent most of the set wondering if they were a covers band. As well as covering Alice In ChainsWould? in memory of Layne Staley and Pantera's A New Level...just because, I guess..., the rest of their repertoire sounds familiar and brings to mind other songs. The song Junkie has an Immigrant Song style riff and generally has a bit of a Living Colour feel about and All The Love has a riff which I was so sure I had heard before but I could not put my finger on it.
 When now Canine vocalist and temporary ex-Ganza vocalist Ben (Saada) joins the band on stage, everything takes a bit of an over theatrical turn. Deciding that he's now American and speaking to the crowd mostly in English, Saada manages to get the crowds attention before singing along in a pretty Axl Rose style manner. Again, there isn't much originality to the track. As great as the vocals and musicianship are, everything still has a sense of "college band" about it.  Frontman, Ari, acts like he's been in the business for decades. Having that sort of strong attitude can be considered both a good thing and a bad thing. Every performer should have confidence and bring a mindset of "this is going to be our biggest show ever" to a performance. That said, there is a fine line between confidence and arrogance and that line is often blurred during tonight's performance. The rest of the band seem to be pretty modest, but it could just be that he has such a strong stage presence that it was hard to really notice anyone else.

  Ganza may have some songs that can get a certain crowd singing along and interested, but in the general scheme of the type of bands that exist in this generation, Ganza don't quite seem to stand out or bring anything incredibly new to the table. Obviously, finding a unique sound is an incredibly difficult thing to do but it could just take some time and harder work to get the right ingredients.



2/5  

03 (Efes Shalosh)


Alongside Eternal Struggle, 03 are a new favourite of mine in the Israeli scene. Where I once thought of them as hardcore metal by numbers, their grooves and heavy riffs have taken a hold of me over time. Seeing as I did not make notes for them during the set, it's hard for me to recall their songs. However, the likes of No Racism and Something To Talk About, the band's currently only available track, gets people going. 
  They are great to watch. Guitarists Lemmy and Oren and bassist Misha spin and jump around while playing as vocalist Jenia runs about constantly as his harsh Born From Pain-like vocals jump out from the speakers. There is the odd metallic cliche, such as fist pumping and encouraging circle pits with the international finger twirling symbol, which don't settle with me too well but it seems to do the trick for the metalheads here tonight. 
  Being the end of the night, there is not as many people here as there was for the other bands. Those who are there include more of the band's closer friends, and the others are still the younger crowd who might not be used to his kind of hardcore. That said, their Hatebreed-like sound may have got them some new fans. 
  
I'm still eagerly awaiting 03's album to come out already. Not saying that their songs sound the same, but it would make it easier to hear the distinction between them on record than in a live setting. Especially as tonight's sound wasn't all that clear. 

4/5

Photos come courtesy of Miguel St Labao, Sharon Shapira and one anonymous photographer. 

Sunday 17 April 2016

Review: Skid 24 - Home and Away EP [2016]


As already mentioned when I posted one of their songs, it's always nice to discover a local band purely by accident. Especially in this very small punk, I was surprised to discover a band I hadn't even stumbled across before.
 Skid 24's first EP, Home and Away, consists of 4 tracks of pure early 2000s pop punk rock. If you think of bands like Blink 182 and The Offspring, then you're close to what this Israeli punk 4 piece do.
  Opening track, Stop The Planet, has quite a The Kids Aren't Alright (The Offspring) sound to it musically, but the vibe changes when vocalist, Leo, begins. His vocals are very much more in the vein of Blink 182 and New Found Glory but due to his strong accent, some words come out sounding strange. Despite that, the song itself is catchy with a fairly serious tone.
  The rest of the EP has a more Blink feel over all. Actually, it's not just a feel but even sound like total replicas. The EP's title track is pretty identical to Rock Show and closing song, Swings, is reminiscent of more poignant numbers like Stay Together For The Kids and Adam's Song. It even verges on the Angel and Airwaves use of the "disco" beat, which makes the chorus easy to dance to. Rock City is possibly the most anthemic. With fast delivery, the song's chorus will be stuck in your head for a while, as will the song's main riff.

  In short, the obvious similarities and strong accent aside, this is personally quite enjoyable punk rock with added nostalgic value. The production quality is of high standard for such an unknown band and the songs are generally quite memorable. The vocals even grow on you after a while. I now sort of see it the same way I see Japanese punk; the accent acts as another instrument and just makes the whole thing sound more interesting.

   Skid 24
might not be exploring any new ground as such, but they're playing what they like and doing it to a good standard, which has to be respected. For anyone interested in downloading the EP FOR FREE, there are special codes to use via the band's bandcamp. The band has kindly given me a few to allocate as I wish. Go to http://skid24.bandcamp.com/yum and use any of these codes:



r2kk-3g37 uxmr-gkz3 vq85-b994 78nb-x96m ludm-et96
If all of these have already been used and you cannot access the free download, get in touch and I might be able to get hold of some more, but essentially this is a first come first served basis.

3.8/5

(Yes. That's really 3.8. It's seriously better than 3.5 but not quite a 4.)



Saturday 16 April 2016

Useless ID premiere new Ramones inspired song, We Don't Want the Airwaves


For many, this has been a long time coming.

Despite all being busy with other projects, Useless ID have managed to make a new album. Before the album's release, the first 7", We Don't Want The Airwaves, comes out on May 6th. An obvious tribute to The Ramones, the song is also dedicated to the late Brandon Carlisle of Teenage Bottlerocket. The song goes back to the band's earlier style of pop punk as well as having quite a Teenage Bottlerocket vibe.

Being fun and uplifting yet having a warm sentiment, the song is well crafted and should grab the attention of older fans who may not have liked the more serious style of last album, Symptoms.

Check it out!

Therapy? release new EP along with new video Tides



 It's been almost a year since the release of Therapy?'s Disquiet album (see my review here), and now they release the Tides EP. The EP features the Disquiet track Tides, as well as 2 new songs and a remix of their track Insecurity. Along with the EP's release, the band release a video for the title track.
 The track takes in a little bit of influence from bands like Husker Du, with a catchy chorus and fuzzy guitars throughout. The video is a little complicated for me to fully understand, but is probably open to interpretation. It aptly takes place at a seaside, in keeping with the song and the song's back story of how frontman Andy Cairns would watch waves from a pier when in need of inspiration. 


 As a side note, this song, after listening to the Disquiet album pretty much on repeat for a good part of last year, subconsciously influenced some of my newer material for Woolly Boy. They might not be a typical punk band, but there are elements of it in there. More importantly, they know how to write a hook!

Sunday 10 April 2016

Hatebreed's lyric video for "A.D."


Many a metalhead and hardcore kid has had to wait 3 years for this, but hardcore legends Hatebreed will release their 7th studio album, The Concrete Confessional, on May 13th 2016 via Nuclear Blast.

From the upcoming album, Hatebreed have treated fans to a lyric video for the track A.D. Having not really paid much attention to the band since The Rise Of Brutality, the track is actually better than I thought it might be.

Lyrically, it's basically the same old thing; "Boo! My country and it's government sucks." Musically, it's a mixture of typical their typical style and Slayer worship, as the first half of the song zips along in thrash-like fashion and then finishes with the iconic Hatebreed fist bump-inducing groove. Put together, it's not the most cringeworthy thing I've ever heard and is not that disappointing, as far as Hatebreed goes.

It's definitely worth checking this out if you have ever liked the band or considered yourself a fan of hardcore and/or metalcore. I'm personally liking the thrash element and hoping there's more of that on the rest of the album.


Wednesday 6 April 2016

Live Review: Not On Tour/Zaga Zaga/Are We Dead? @ HaMartef, Haifa [18th March 2016]


For what I'm pretty sure is the first time ever, I come to HaMartef (The Basement) in Haifa to check out new band Are We Dead? as well as Punkalovich favourites Zaga Zaga and Not On Tour


Are We Dead?


Are We Dead? are a new Haifa/North based hardcore band. Mixing metallic riffs with hardcore vocals, Are We Dead? manage to warm up the evening with a lot of the street punks going nuts. Whether these guys are actually into the music or just drunk out of their minds is hard to tell, but by my experience of street punks, it's more likely the latter. 
 Although this style of hardcore might not be for everyone, the moments where they play "beatdowns" do get me pumped. I also like the fact that the band is made up of people from other music backgrounds besides hardcore. Bassist Artem seems to come from a more metal background yet plays like a jazz bassist; lots of fingers and not a pick in sight. I'm normally not a fan of too much fret-work but it was fun to watch. 
 Are Are We Dead? the best new thing in hardcore, probably not. However, for what it was, parts had me smiling and the atmosphere over all was fun.

3/5


Zaga Zaga



I'm not entirely sure how many times I can write about Zaga Zaga. I certainly can't really say anything new, despite them having new material. It's not that all their songs sound the same, but they are all just crazy, aggressive and fun. Same goes for the performance.


  Zaga Zaga might still be an acquired taste, as some of the heckling mimicry of their shouting vocals proves, but there are those who are into it or are at least dancing like loons regardless. With a new album in the works, I hope there's a lot more great new songs to help Zaga Zaga make a name for themselves in the mathcore/post-hardcore world.


4.5/5


Not On Tour


Although Useless ID still remain the most internationally known punk band to come out of Israel, the likes of Kids Insane and tonight's headliners, Not On Tour, are closely following behind. Before they head back to Europe once again for Groezrock and after that join A Wilhelm Scream and Strung Out in Japan, Not On Tour have headed up to Haifa with a surprise new addition to the band.

In the same way as for Zaga Zaga, I'm sort of running out of new things to say about the female fronted skater punk band. Sima's voice is somehow always precisely as you hear it on record, the backing vocals are always somehow pitch perfect and not too overpowering and the musicianship over all is pretty faultless. Even with surprise new replacement guitarist, Matan (Save It), there is no drop in quality at all. I think suddenly seeing a different guitarist was a bit of a shock for some at first, but that seems to disappear as soon as they start up and the songs get under way. Matan might not right in our faces as of yet, but he certainly doesn't slip up or seem out of place.
Although there's also a good number of Tel Aviv people up here tonight, it's the unfamiliar Haifa faces that are really having a ball to the band's special breed of 7 Seconds meets The Vandals style punk rock. As usual, it's songs from the likes of All This Time and the N.O.T On Tour EP that get the best reception, closely followed by tracks off the new record. As I look around, I suddenly realise that the place has got pretty packed. Both street punks, hardcore kids and metal heads alike are dancing and singing along.



Although the whole show was pretty fun itself, including a surprising and impressive version of The Beatles' Oh Darling after their own super popular song, Darling, their encore makes my night. Not only do they play one of my favourite old track of theirs, Silly Thoughts, but Eyal of Are We Dead? takes on drum duties while someone (for some reason, I can't remember who) sings along with Sima. I was going pretty crazy myself, but could see that there were a few blank faces on those who weren't familiar with the song. Dudes, it was their first music video! It was the first one I heard from them. It's a necessary song to know!

Not On Tour are one of those bands who are gaining success for the right reasons. Having a female singer might be considered a selling point, but it by no means the main point of their success. Having a voice like that of Sima's definitely gives them an advantage, but it's the quickness and general uplifting vibes of the songs, even the serious ones, that strikes a chord with people, including me.

5/5

Saturday 2 April 2016

Yotam Ben Horin's new video for California Sounds



Yotam Ben Horin has been a very busy bee the past couple of years. He's managed to get an album out for his hardcore band Spit, do extensive solo touring, work on new material for legendary Israeli punk band Useless ID and put out his latest solo album California Sounds

The catchy and beautifully crafted title track of the album is now accompanied by a simple yet poignant video which sees Yotam playing guitar and singing by the hotel sign that the record's front cover was shot, as well as taking in a few local sights.

The song might be in a slightly different direction to what Useless ID fans would expect, but Yotam has been able to show his proper song writing chops for quite some time now. Also, sometimes you just got to slow things down a bit. 




Yotam is currently on a massive European tour as part of Joey Cape's (Lagwagon) Stitch Puppy tour. The tour is in its final week which sees them in Austria, Italy, Switzerland and back in Germany.





Friday 1 April 2016

Skid 24


Just when I thought I was aware of pretty much all the currently active punk bands in Israel, someone posts a song on a facebook group and helps me to discover that there's more!

Skid 24 are a fairly new band who play solid pop punk rock. Being a trio including 2 guys in their 30s, they play pop punk how it once was, not the crying self indulgence you tend to get nowadays, 
but just simple easy to listen to punk rock.

Check out the track Stop The Planet. I will do a proper review of the new EP, Home and Away, soon.